• The Persian War
• Technology of ancient Greek warfare
• Athenian supremacy
• The Peloponnesian War
• Spartan supremacy
• Theban hegemony and the Second Athenian Empire

Winged bas-relief (left and center) and the tomb of Cyrus, in the royal city of Pasargadae, the first capital of the Persian Empire and a UNESCO World Heritage Site

• Lived c.600-530 BC, founded of the Achaemenid Empire
  • From 559 BC he rulied as a vassal of the Medes, another Iranian peoples
  • Cyrus overthrew Astyages, the last Median king, c. 550, and conquered several semi-inependent peoples to the east, including Baktria and Sogdia, reaching the Indus river
  • Defeated and captured Croesus, king of Lydia, in 547/6
  • Conquered the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539
• Lydia had annexed several Ionian cities in the early 6th century, and they now became part of the Achaemenid Empire

• Cyrus' son, Cambyses II (530-522) conquered Egypt
  • Except for the period 404-342 Egypt was thenceforth a Persian satrapy
• Darius I (522-486) consolidated Persian rule and expanded the borders to their greatest extent
  • Campagned into central Asia and the Indus basin
  • Put down a major revolt in Babylon (522)
  • Adopted Aramaic as the language of government
  • Attacked the Scythians in the eastern Balkans (513) campaigning into modern Ukraine, adding Thrace to the empire while Macedonia submitted voluntarily

• Simultaneous revolts by Greek cities in Ionia, Aeolia, Doria, Cyprus, and Caria which tried to reassert their independence
  • Persians had imposed tyrants to rule the cities, the rebels often installed "democracy"
  • Started in cities of Miletus and Ephesus
• Allied army of Ionians, Athenians, and Eritreans sacked Sardis (the seat of the local satrap) in 498
  • Although the revolt spread to other cities, thereafter the rebeles were on the defensive
• Although ultimately defeated, the Persians adopted concilatory policies (lightening tax burdens, allowing local democracies)
• However, ruling only half of the Greek world was clearly an unstable arrangement

• The Persians reasserted control over Thrace and Macedonia in 492, crossing the Bosporus
  • Fleet was wrecked in a storm rounding Mt. Athos, preventing campaigning southward
  • Ambassadors were sent demanding submission from the Greek cities (symbolized by earth and water)
  • Many cities accepted, but Athens and Sparta killed the ambassadors
• In 490, the launched a naval attack across the Aegean, sacking Naxos, capturing and razing Eretria, and then cross to Attica, landing in the bay of Marathon on Attica's east coast

• Athens had requested assistance from Sparta, but they refused to leave home yet, leaving Athens alone but for a contingent from the small allied city of Plataea
• At Marathon, after a few days of stalemate, the outnumbered Athenians decided to attack, charging down-hill and enveloping the Persians
• According to Herodotus, 6400 Persians died to 192 Athenians and 11 Plataeans
• A naval victory by the Athenians immediately afterward ended the campaign

• Preparations for follow- up campaign were slowed by a revolt in Egypt in 486 and Darius' death. He was succeeded by his son Xerxes (486-465)
• Unlike the first attack, this invasion was massive, though estimates for size vary greatly:
  • Herodotus: 2.5 million men, 1200 warships and 3000 transports
  • Ctesias (early C4 BC): 800,000
  • Modern estimates: 300,000-500,000, around 600 ships
• Two pontoon bridges across the Hellespont (Dardanelles, the narrowest point today is about 1.4 km) each consisting of over 300 ships
• Canal across the isthmus of Mt. Athos (found by modern archaeological survey)

• The land-battle at Thermopylae occurred simultaneously with a nearby naval battle at Artemisium in August (?) 480
  • Leonidas I, dual-king of Sparta, led his bodyguard and a small contingent of allied hoplites (300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, 400 Thebians) in a doomed defense of the pass
  • An allied Greek fleet (principally Athenians led by Themistocles) held off the larger Persian fleet, but withdrew when news of the loss at Thermopylae reached them
• The losses exposed Boetia and Attica to invasion – the next choke-pint was the isthmus at Corinth. Most of Boetia submitted, while Athenians evacuated the city to Salamis, an island immeiately off the coast
  • Naval supremacy necessary for defense at the isthmus, and Athens' navy was the largest by far

• An oracle from Delphi had predicted that Athens' wooden wall would hold
  • Defence of the Acropolis of Athens, defeated, Athens burned
  • The allied fleets, under the nominal command of the Spartan Eurybiades, regroupped at Salamis
  • Athenians threatened to sail westward rather than let their citizens be captured
• The fleets met at the Battle of Salamis in September (?) 480. The Persians were lured into the straights separating the island from the mainland, negating their numerical superiority.
  • Defeated, Xerxes withdrew to Persia, leaving much of the army to over-winter in Europe

• In the spring, Persians under Mardonius again took Athens. Athenians threatened to quit the alliance if the Peloponnesians didn't attack
  • They eventually did, and the Persians withdrew to Boetia
• The armies met near Plataea. The allied city-states, led by the Spartan Pausanias. The Greeks won a decisive victory here in August, followed shortly thereafter by a decisive naval victory at Mycale in Ionia

• After Plataea and Mycale, the Greek cities of Asia Minor again revolted, and the Greek allies went on the attack
  • Spartans believed the original goals of the war fulfilled, while Athenians believed further warfare would be necessary to gurantee Ionian cities' independence
  • Athens and the newly-liberated cities formed that Delian League, an alliance seeking to organize for future conflict against Persia
• Throughout the 470s, the Delian league campaigned against Persia, winning a decisive victory at Eurymedon in 469 or 466
  • The Delian league also supported a revolt in Egypt in the 460s, which ended disastrously
  • A truce between the Delian league and Persia was finally agreed after one (of many) failed attempts to liberate Cyprus in 451, ending the "Persian Wars"

• Name derived from their heavy round convex wooden sheild, the hoplon (also called an aspis)
  • Pprox. 3' diameter, 16 lbs, 1-1.5" thick
  • "By another [unnamed Spartan woman], as she handed her son his shield, exhorted him saying, 'Either this or upon this.'" From Ploutarch's Moralia, III.18 "Sayings of Spartan Women" LCL III p. 465.
• Other equipment included body armor bronze helmet, cuirass (bronze or linothorax, greaves, iron-tipped spear (doru, approx. 8'), and short-swort (xiphos)
  • Armament was personal property
• Limited use of cavalry: expense; unsuitable geography; social norms

Battle scene from 300 (2006 film)

So much cool, so much no

A hoplite battle on the upper frieze on Chingi Vase, C7 BC

• Organization and discipline were the key features of hoplite battle
  • Cooperation enforced by equipment; half your protection came from your neighbour to the right
  • Battles were a shoving match between sides; whichever broke first, lost
• Battle-lines were typically 8 ranks deep
  • Better-equpped soldiers to the front
  • Those in the back assisted in the pushing contest, dispatched fallen enemies

A hoplite battle-line

Evolution of equipment from the Persian Wars (left) to the period of Alexander the Great (right)

• Following the Battle of Marathon, Athens began investing heavily in its navy.
  • In 480, the Athenian fleet included over 200 new triremes. By 420, the fleet size had increased to 350
• Although they had sails, propulsion was principally from rowers
  • The Olympias, a reconstructed trireme, can sustain 4 kmph, reach a "burst" speed of 18kmph, and turn 180 degrees in under a minute in less than 2.5 ship-lengths with an inexperienced volunteer crew
  • A typical crew comprised 170 rowers, 15 deck hands, 10 marines, a floutist to keep time, and officers
  • Athenian rowers were drawn from the city's poor, but they were citizens not slaves
• The main weapon was the bronze-tipped ram

A kylix from Vulci depicting a bireme and merchant ships, circa 500 BC

The configuration of rowers (right) and the battle of Salamis, 480 BC (right)

The Olympias, launched in 1987

• Formed in the late 7th century against Argos, Sparta's principal competetor for leadership in the peninsula, the league eventually included most of the Peloponessos except Argos and Achaea
• The league functioned as a series of alliances with Sparta, which exercised veto power over the decisions of the rest of the member states
• The league supported oligarchies, opposed tyrannies and democracies

• A few early attempts were made to leave the Dealian league: Naxos in 471, Thasos in 465. Unsuccessful revolts had their walls torn down, their lands seized, and were forced to pay tribute
• The First Peloponnesian War (460-445) marked the transition from league to empire
  • Athens rebuilt its walls, destroyed during the Persian occupation, and added the "Long Wall"
  • In 451, Pericles moved the League's treasure to Athens
• The war was inconclusive, and ended with a "30 years' peace" (which only lasted 445-431)

• Lived c.495-429 BC, a wealthy aristocrat famed for his populist politics
• His political career began in the early 460s, first by ousting Cimon in 461, who had ostracised Themistocles in 472 or 471
• He led Athens as a leading citizen and as one of the annually-elected strategoi
  • He was a skilled field commander, a talented oratician and politician, and a patron of arts in the city
  • Comissioned Aeschylus' The Persians in 472
  • Credited with rebuilding the Acropolis starting 449

• Archidaimian War (431-421)
  • Strategic stalemate
• Peace of Nicias (421-414)
  • Both sides jockeyed for new allies
• Sicilian Expedition (415-413)
  • Athens lost the whole expeditionary force and much of the navy
• Renewed warfare (414-404)
  • Persia allied with Sparta in 411, challenging Athens at sea
  • A series of revolutions and counter-revolutions in Athens
  • Athens had to tear down its walls and be governed by 30 Spartan-appointed Tyrants, but they were overthrown and democracy again restored in 403

• Lived c.450-404, a relative of Pericles and Socrates' most controversial student. A talented general and polarizing figure, he lacked Pericles' political acumen
  • 415: a major proponent of the Sicilian expedition, but he was accused of mutilating the herms in Athens on the eve of departure. Concemned to death in absentia that year
  • Defected to Sparta
  • 412: Had an affair with the Spartan King's wife, defected to Persia
  • 411: supported Athenian democrats against an oligarchic coup, rehabilitated as Athenian general, winning a string of victories 410-407
  • 406: after a costly defeat at Notium, he went into self-imposed exile; assassinated in 404

• Spartan hegemony barely lasted a decade until an alliance of Athens, Argos, Corinth, and Thebes challenged it in the Corinthian War (395-387)
  • Persian control reasserted over the Asian Greek cities, and would rule them until Alexander's campaigns
  • Athens began rebuilding its (second) empire (378-355)
• The Boetian War (378-372) saw Thebes emerge as the regional hegemon (371-346)
  • Sparta was decisively defeated in the Battle of Leuctra (371) and the Battle of Mantinea (362)
  • The cities of the Peloponnesos were liberated, particularly the helots of Messenia, gutting the Spartan economy and creating several powerful, intractable enemies on Sparta's borders

• Aeschylus, The Persians (472)
• Aristophanes, Lysistrata (411)
• Xenophon, Anabasis, Cyranopaedia, Hellenica, and The Polity of the Athenians and of the Lacedaemonians
• Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica (1st century BC)
• Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Moralia, and On the Malice of Herodotus

Secondary literature

• P. Connolly, Greece and Rome at War, Revised edition, Greenhill Books, 1998
• Osprey Military History
• Donald Kagan

Games

• Civilization series
• Rome: Total War (2004) and Total War: Rome II (2013)
  • Medieval II: Total War (2006) with Europa Barbarorum 2 mod
• Europa Universalis: Rome (2008)